Transition Curvature and Readback Pulse Width in Perpendicular Magnetic Recording

Abstract

In perpendicular magnetic recording, track edge noise, write fringing, and transition curvature are crucial issues that need to be addressed in order to increase track density. In particular, it is thought that the transition curvature at the written track edges broadens readback pulse width through the azimuth loss effect, but quantitative discussion of this phenomenon has not been sufficient. In this paper we extract transition lines observed in MFM images, and examine the influence of the transition curvature on the readback pulse width and transition jitter. Our findings show that this influence is not very large, and that deterioration of the writing resolution or broadening of the transition width at the track edges is more significant.